Big Wins at The Reed Awards

The New Media Firm is proud to have won multiple Reed Awards for our work with Teachers and Education Associations in 2021.

TNMF won the award for Best TV Ad for Public Affairs for our work with the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA). Our ad “Clinic” tells the story of Dan Staples, a New Jersey teacher who helped partner with a local health department to get people vaccinated. We focused on Dan in particular as he served his country as a Marine and he became a teacher to serve the students in his hometown. As Dan says, “service doesn’t stop at the classroom door,” and that’s why he’s encouraging and helping people get vaccinated to get back to normal. This ad was launched just as COVID-19 vaccines were becoming widely available across New Jersey and helped drive a serious increase in the vaccine rate.

We also won the award for Best Online Video for Public Affairs for our work with the Delaware State Education Association (DSEA).

Working with the DSEA, we developed and executed an innovative campaign to pass HB100. Legislative leaders called HB100 a “game changer for our kids” to significantly expand mental health services in Delaware elementary schools. We created a collection of first-person videos, over 45 spots in all, telling personal and emotional stories about the importance of mental health in public schools. The digital-first program utilized Applecart’s social graph platform to help us fine tune targeting for programmatic advertising, contextual video, and Snapchat to reach multiple audiences throughout the legislative session. We are very thankful that Governor John Carney signed HB100 into law last August.

The winning ad, “Chris the Zenith” was the highlight of a large multi-pronged program, tells the story of Chris Locke and his son Sean, a promising student and athlete who took his own life. Sean’s dad, Chris shares a photo of Sean at the zenith of his basketball career, when he realized his dream of playing in March Madness. But Sean wasn’t taught about mental illness growing up or in school and if he had been, he might be with us today. This ad used the emotion of a parent in a responsible way, to help pass HB100 into law. We are grateful for Chris’ involvement with this campaign.

Congratulations to our colleagues and all the award winners over the past year. We are honored and so thankful for the trust of our clients to help them tell stories that win and make our country a better place.